A Garden Inclosed

Written almost entirely in dialogue this novel takes us into the lives of Ellis DeHart and his fair-skinned African-American wife Rosa as they search for answers to two shattering tragedies: the death of their son from a rare disease and the refusal by Elliss father to have anything to do with them. Rosa the rational geneticist thinks she knows the cause of their sons death but Ellis unable to accept the randomness of a chance mutation turns to genealogy for the answer. Through research and imagination he recreates the lives of their ancestors and discovers a more likely explanation. Ellis then tries to learn why the father he revered rejected him and Rosa after their engagement. Was it because of her race? Was it because Rosas father was a civil-rights activist in the small southern town where Elliss fathers was police chief? Was Elliss father involved in the killing of Rosas parents? Elliss recreation of that tragic time cracks the case but uncovers a secret even more threatening to his marriage to Rosa.